Journolist: Evidence of Collusion Between the Media and Democrats

RUSH: All right, there is a huge story out there today, but it could be even bigger, and it should be even bigger. It is from Chatsworth Osborne Jr.'s website, The Daily Caller, and it is about this Journolist, and what it shows is something that we have known all along, and that is that there's not just media coordination in order to advance the Democrat Party agenda and to rip and ridicule, criticize Republicans and conservatives. It's not just coordination. It is an outright propaganda campaign. Jonathan Strong has the story: "Documents Show Media Plotting to Kill Stories About Rev. Jeremiah Wright." But it's far more than that. Here's one of the great pull quotes from this story: "In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama's relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama's conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, 'Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists.'"

So liberals don't just lie, they lie to destroy people. No smear is too low or outrageous when it comes to conservatives. But what this story misses is it portrays the people involved in this Journolist as basically a bunch of obscure left-wing bloggers working for small-time websites and magazines like The Nation and the Washington Independent and so forth, when in fact this is pervasive throughout what is called the mainstream media. I mean you've heard Brad Sherman in California, congressman, the first official Democrat, (imitating Sherman) "I, I, I didn't know about the New Black Panthers story, I, I, I was on vacation, and and and and none of the media that I, I, I, I read had any news about the New Black Panthers. I, I, I, just didn't know about it." He's probably telling the truth, I'm sure Bob Schieffer didn't know about it. I mean Bob Schieffer and the rest of these people read themselves pure and simple. It's like that blog in the New York Times yesterday about, "Oh, my gosh." This was all written for everybody else in the media and for Obama and the administration.

So something that you and I have known instinctively all along has now been confirmed by the people at the Journolist, these people are in collusion. They're not journalists whatsoever. And any of you in this audience, if you are a journalism school graduates you ought to be ripped to shreds over this. There is a journalist conspiracy out there, we've all known it, it existed to elect Obama, it exists today to reelect Democrats and Obama, and it's done so for years and years and years. "It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama's political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself."

And, by the way, I know that Andrew Breitbart's done great work getting this video of Ms. Sherrod at the US Department of Agriculture and her supposed racism and so forth saying she's not gonna help a white farmer. You don't need Shirley Sherrod or whatever her name is to prove racism at the NAALCP. All you need to know is that Jeremiah Wright's a featured speaker at the NAALCP. That's all you need to know. The NAACP is as racist an organization as there has been and is in this country, and you don't need Shirley Sherrod. The thing about Shirley Sherrod, this is the US Department of Agriculture babe who has been fired by Tom Vilsack, who, by the way, tried to slough this off on Bush, the blame, (imitating Vilsack) "Well, 18 months we're still in the process of trying to clear out the deadwood here. A lot going on," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She said she finally had the chance here to not help a white farmer, get even, the old days.

That's not the point, really, because we know that the NAACP is racist, we know that the race business is racist, we know that it relies on racism and we know that the way it relies on racism is to tar and feather everybody else as racist. And what they're doing to the Tea Party now some people look at as a success because it's taken the Tea Party off message. But the real thing you need to glean is that the Obama administration and the federal bureaucracy is full of incompetence like Shirley Sherrod and it's not going to be very long before you're going to be dealing with her for your health care, and if you happen to be showing up to a black bureaucratic appointed by Obama and you happen to be something other than black, you might have the same treatment regarding your health care that this poor white farmer got. I mean, the bigger picture here is that.

Now, she supposedly has been dismissed, and she's out now saying, (paraphrasing) "This is a terrible misunderstanding. I didn't do any of this. The interpretation here on Fox and everywhere else is totally incorrect. I didn't do anything." Of course not. Of course not. Minorities, they can't be racist, they don't have the power to be racist. It simply isn't possible. So remember, folks, these are the kind of people -- and we are talking about the federal bureaucracy -- these are the kind of people, "Look, go to work for the government, nobody ever gets fired here." The ruling class. Nobody ever gets fired in the government. Everybody gets raises when you work for the government. And these people look at it as having all kinds of power over the rest of us, the ruling class versus us, the so-called country class. It's not going to be long before these same kinds of people are going to be the people you have to go through to get the health care treatment or whatever access you need to the system. Those are going to be the people you first run into, by design and on purpose.

Another member of this conspiracy, Todd Gitlin, who is a professor of journalism at Columbia University, a professor of journalism is part of the Journolist that proved collusion, conspiracy, and all kinds of cooperation among leftist journalists to screw Republican candidates, to ignore bad news and deflect bad news about Democrats. Zev Chafets, who wrote the book on me, An Army of One, went out and asked Todd Gitlin what he thought of me and Todd Gitlin's first response was he's a hater, he's a racist, sexist, all this sort of stuff. Zev said, "Do you ever listen to him?" "No, I don't have to." This is a professor of journalism at Columbia. So he took a challenge, he listened on the challenge of Zev Chafets, and he moderated his criticism of me just a little bit, but look, I've been facing this for 20 years and a number of us on the conservative side have been facing this for 20 years. Now, these conspirators, these small pond media types were exhorting their mainstream media folks to spike the story of Jeremiah Wright. This is what was happening and the mainstream guys followed suit.

So to say that this is just a small-time blogosphere that's involved in collusion is a big mistake. It's no accident Bob Schieffer has no idea about the New Black Panther Party. It's no accident that Charlie Gibson -- what was the story that he had no idea about while he was on vacation? ACORN. It was no accident Charlie Gibson didn't know about the ACORN tapes that Breitbart had uncovered. He didn't know about it. If it's not in TIME Magazine, if it's not on the other two networks or any of the three, if it's not on CNN, not in the New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, they don't know about it. They're insulated. They live and exist for each other. You and I are three times as informed as the so-called veneered fourth estate. You and I know more about what's going on in this country than they do, and they are the ones with the arrogant condescension looking down on all of us. The only way they can discredit us is to call us names. I do my homework. I study those people.

This show is primarily an expose of the left, mixed with the explanation of and the support of conservative principles and constructs. But I know more about what's going on in this country than they do. And you do, too. Now, this goes to another point, people constantly call here, "Rush, Rush, when is the media gonna --" they're never going to. This story in the Daily Caller proved they're never going to point our way, they're never going to give our point of view. They are going to lie about it. They are going to discredit people who have our point of view. It's all part of the big story yesterday by Angelo Codevilla that we spent a lot of time on, the ruling class. And yet we are the ones who supposedly have this vast right-wing conspiracy, this vast echo chamber that Mrs. Clinton is always talking about. Now, in the interests of transparency, shouldn't we be allowed to access the Journolist archives? The Journolist, look at it as a blog where all these people get together and talk about what they're going to do. "Okay, the word is gravitas." It's all explained here.

What's left out of this story is that this is not small pond media types. It's not just them. This story is about the small pond media types. It is about the fact that the small pond guys are constantly putting pressure on the big pond people, the networks, New York Times, and some of those people are participating in it anyway. I know you're probably saying, "Rush, Rush, Rush, you know all this. I know all this." Yes, we have. We've known all of this. But you read their hateful conspiratorial words, and it's a gut shot. "The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long -- nearly a year since Wright's remarks became public -- to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, 'Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?'" Mr. Wright's bizarre comments first became public, as you know, in January of 2007.

Now, watching all this at home, watching this appearance, this ABC News debate "were members of Journolist, a list comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. 'George [Stephanopoulos],' fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is 'being a disgusting little rat snake,'" for daring bringing up Jeremiah Wright to Barack Obama. "Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

"In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent-- " and you've never heard of that probably, this is my point, he may be at the Washington Independent, maybe a small ponder, maybe an obscure blogger, it's made up of far more powerful and larger media people than Spencer Ackerman. They all think the same. They don't have to actually conspire even though it's shown here that they have and that they do. They all think the same way. Remember yesterday the piece by Angelo Codevilla, the educational system in this country has turned out monoliths. There is no diversity. There is a singular mode of thought, that graduates from any major institution of higher learning, be it the poli-sci department, the journalism department, they all come out indoctrinated liberals.

So, "Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage. In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama's relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama's conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, 'Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists.' Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: 'Listen folks -- in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn't about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.'

'Richard Kim got this right above: "a horrible glimpse of general election press strategy." He's dead on,' Tomasky continued. 'We need to throw chairs now, try as hard as we can to get the call next time. Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease.'" I mean this story, it just goes on and on and on. Ackerman: "I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It's not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright's defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger's [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear."

This is one of the members of the Journolist liberals, and this is right out of yesterday's column by Mr. Codevilla: mock, intimidate, dismantle your opponents, don't discuss issues with them, just intimidate them. "Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction." So it's out there. It's instructive, and it's a must read. But keep in mind now that it doesn't go quite far enough, because it simply portrays most of these participants as small ponders as I'm saying, but this is the entirety of the State-Controlled Media no matter how small or large they are. Yeah, I guess this is what they teach as objectivity at journalism school.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It's Rush Limbaugh, the cutting edge of societal evolution.

The story is the Washington media behind the scenes. The story is main stream coordination with the left. All the story right now has at the Daily Caller is crazy lefties and bloggers saying intemperate things. The point is there is ongoing, daily cooperation or conspiracy or collusion, coordination. There is no media. The best way to say it is there is nothing that is media as you and I think of media. There are no reporters. The media is simply an arm of the left. It is the Democrat Party. Look at the media as having been as co-opted as academia. It doesn't matter whether you find somebody named Ezra Klein at the Washington Post or David Weigel (wherever he is) or Anastas Mikoyan or somebody. They're all frauds.

Nothing is real, particularly anything that comes one of these people's mouths or is written by their pens or at their typewriters, computers, what have you -- or from their cameras. Nothing is real. They may as well be elected officials or campaign consultants, pure and simple. Nothing more. Now, I, El Rushbo, have instinctively known this for most of my life, which is why I have been very frustrated over the years when people have told me that the definition of conservative success will be when the mainstream media finally sees it our way. There is no mainstream media! There are no mainstream media reporters. There is no journalism. That's not what this is. You can call it propaganda. You can call it coordination, collusion. It's just liberalism and the ruling class with a different branch: People who have access to cameras, microphones, and newspapers.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Friend sends me a note, "Rush what do you mean? What do you mean here this 'small time, crazy, left-wing bloggers'? Jeffrey Toobin, Eric Alterman, Paul Krugman Joe Klein are crazy left-wing bloggers? They're treated as giants." Let's take 'em individually. Eric Alterman. Do you know who Eric Alterman is? The left may treat him as a giant. I know that they do. He's a kook! He's a far-left fringe kook. But do you know who he is? Do you? Jeffrey Toobin. You might know who he is. He works for the least-watched cable news network in history, CNN. He also worked there when they had viewers. I know he's considered a giant. He's a "legal correspondent." He's considered to be above reproach.

There is no journalism. These people are not journalists. They're propagandists, whether it's Jeffrey Toobin or Eric Alterman or Krugman. Yeah, he's a New York Times columnist; he's a propagandist. He is a giant because he's in the New York Times. But my point is whether it's people you've never heard of on this list writing for blogs you've never heard of or whether it is names you never heard of, it's the entire Washington media -- and it's pervasive. I really do think that the take here is there is no media. This is the big myth. You know, the German historian Carl von Clausewitz once stated "War is diplomacy by another means." Well, journalism is just propaganda now: The government putting out its agenda by another means. There are no reporters. There is no journalism. It's just liberalism.

Marxism, socialism, whatever you want to call it, it's the left -- and they are all considered to be members of the ruling class, and that ruling class has its agenda. News that fits gets trumpeted around the clock. News that distracts or contradicts the agenda gets flushed down the memory hole. Look, I'll give you a great example here. I pulled it aside. It is Mary Frances Berry. Mary Frances Berry is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, former chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights. She writes at Politico, quote, "Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans.

"But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one's opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness," and she's exactly right. Amazing candor. That's the strategy. It's worked every time it's tried. Although I will say the charge of racism is losing its heft. It used to really silence people. Now it's like saying that water is wet. It's no big deal anymore. It's been overdone and overblown. But they still try it. And as Mr. Codevilla pointed out yesterday, it's one of the staples that the ruling class uses to silence us in the country class. Call us names: Racists, sexists, bigots, homophobes. So it's a pervasive thing, and you couple what we've learned today from this listserv, the Journolist, with Mr. Codevilla's piece yesterday, and everything now can be viewed through an entirely different prism.

The media is not the media. They may be on TV and they may be called reporters and they may do stories, but they're not doing stories. They're not reporting. They are obedient. They're following orders. They're following instructions. These are the people who are in the ruling class and are climbing the ranks of the ruling class seeking to be approved. It's no different than the high school big clique. Here. Go back in time to the audio sound bites, to show you what upset most of these people on the Journolist that Chatsworth Osborne, Jr.'s website, The Daily Caller, as uncovered today. This question by Stephanopoulos is what sent them into a tizzy. It was being too tough on Obama. They gotta do something to fix this. We gotta get Wright out of the equation here. We can't let Wright be in the story. Gotta take Wright out of the story. We gotta go after the mainstream media or others in the big time media intimidate them into forgetting Jeremiah Wright. This was the question.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do? And number two: If you get the nomination, what will you do when those sermons are played on television again and again and again?

RUSH: So the Journalist members, they're just outraged at George Stephanopoulos. "How dare he? Who is he asking this question?" They mobilized and did everything they could. Now, what was his question about? Again, who are we talking about here? The Reverend Wright.

WRIGHT (screaming): Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people! [snip] Hillary ain't never been called a nigger! [snip] Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky!

CONGREGATION: (cheers)

WRIGHT: He was riding dirty. [snip] In white America, US of KKKA: black men turning on black men. [snip] I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it. [snip] Not God bless America, God (bleep) America! It's in the Bible. For killing innocent people, God (bleep) America! [snip] (screaming) And now we are indignant because of stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards!

CONGREGATION: (cheers)

WRIGHT: America's chickensssss are coming home to roost.

RUSH: Oh, we couldn't have that out there! No, no, we can't have that out there. No, no. You just can't have that out there, and so they moved into action and they did everything they could to suppress that, and it worked. The only place that stuff ever appeared is Fox News and Hannity and on some blogs (Sweetness and Light for one), and here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. But it was successfully sequestered everywhere else. There is no media. There are no reporters. That's the simplest and easiest way to understand this. You're not watching news. You are not tuning in to see what has happened and be told by people what has happened. You are tuning in to propaganda arms of the Democrat Party or the American left or what have you, and if you stop and think of it that way, it's not even arguable.

Where do you see any contradicting reporting on global warming or on any issue? Where do you see any alternative reporting or any idea or any criticism of the standard reportage? You do not. The New Black Panther Party? Bob Schieffer (stammering), "Oh, I had no idea about it." ACORN tapes, Charlie Gibson. "Ha-ha-ha. I don't know what you're talking about." It's "I was on vacation." Schieffer was on vacation. "I don't know what you're talking about," and they didn't. They probably didn't. The thing is when they did find out, they didn't care -- or better stated, when they did find out, they said, "Uh-oh, I can't do this. Uh-oh. I'll not stay in the ruling class if I run with this stuff. Uh-oh! Oh, no, no. There can't be racism on my side of the aisle here. I'm not racist. I, Bob Schieffer, am a great American! I'm a great guy. I'm one of the good people." Charlie Gibson, ditto. "I'm not racist. There's no racism on our side. This New Black Panther stuff? No, no, no. We're not going to report that. It didn't happen," even when they find out that it did happen.